Good Things Come In Small Packages
by The Hobbit's Rhapsody
Summary: Twenty-five sentences for the golden-haired girl and the Faun who first had tea in a wood where it was never Christmas. Fluff! and a bit of angst. — Intended by the author to be purely a friendship fic, but can be read as a ship fic if you wish.


**A/N: ****This was written by the author as purely a friendship fic, but she has no objections to your squinting and wishing on it for romance, if you are so inclined. She doesn't ship Lucy and Tumnus, but realizes you might, and has no canon-based or moral objections to this particular ship. Go to town, my friends, and leave a review if you like!**

******To my regret, I do not own _The Chronicles of Narnia_ nor anything herein—all rights are the possession of the masterful Mr. Clive Staples Lewis and his scions.**

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1 • **Happy**

As a royal advisor, Tumnus always had several stacks of papers on his desk, but few knew that the ones tucked between _Is Man a Myth?_ and _A Seagoing History of Galma_ were sketches done by the younger Queen of their fondest times together.

2 • **Memento**

Narnia mourned all their Kings and Queens when they vanished, but it was the few golden hairs left behind on the bedchamber floor that made Tumnus ache the most.

3 • **Link**

As the years passed, she would come to him more and more, seeking to remember the carefree days of her childhood—the Queen was a woman, and sometimes others forgot that Lucy was not.

4 • **Token**

The night they stepped back into Spare Oom and England, Lucy wept not just for her lost Queenship and womanhood, but over the thread of red yarn she found caught in her shoe.

5 • **Laugh**

Nothing in all Narnia made him happier than Queen Lucy's laugh, and that was as true a fact as there ever was.

6 • **Waking**

When the blurry grey nightmare ended, and he slid smoothly into fluid, crisp, waking color, it was almost as thrilling to see a beaming eight-year-old girl's face in front of him as the open mouth of the Great Lion.

7 • **Portent**

He heard of the White Stag's sighting from a Dryad in the Lantern Waste; though he did not know why, he hesitated before bringing the news to Their Majesties.

8 • **Sweet**

By the time the Pevensies had been on the throne fifteen years, Tumnus had grown a bit portly about the middle; Lucy liked to teasingly attribute it to the excuse for cake that was their weekly teatime.

9 • **Preference**

Everyone who knew the name of Narnia adored the grace and beauty of Queen Susan, but it was always Queen Lucy's sunny, giddy winsomeness that Tumnus faithfully praised.

10 • **Favorite**

Despite all the delicacies available to the palates of the Kings and Queens, if anyone asked Lucy what her favorite food was, she would promptly reply with "sardines and toast, really."

11 • **Suitability**

Though Lucy in her womanhood stood a full six inches taller than Tumnus, she never outgrew her place as his favorite dance partner at all the Cair's balls, nor at the rather less formal affairs on the Dancing Lawn.

12 • **Protectors**

When the _Splendour Hyaline _set sail for Tashbaan, Peter entrusted all the attending advisors with the safekeeping of his royal sister Susan, not knowing that Lucy was at the same time admonishing Edmund to do the same for Tumnus.

13 • **Valor**

Every Talking Beast knew the tale of how Queen Lucy had come to be called the Valiant—it had started, really, with that time Her Majesty had come to the injured Sir Tumnus' defense against a wolf, armed with only a dagger.

14 • **Lessons**

Queen Lucy's tutors were pleasantly surprised at her ability to rhapsodize with ease about the history of the various creatures of Narnia (she went on for an hour about the Buffin giants alone), never knowing that she sat happily though many long talks with the knowledgable Tumnus on just such matters.

15 • **Discreet**

Lucy and Tumnus liked to think that their regular exchange of handkerchiefs—for both of them were always easily moved to tears—was discreet, but that was only because everyone else was very good at smiling behind their hands whenever they did so.

16 • **Reckoning**

When he heard those fateful words from his own mouth—_It isn't something I have done. I'm doing it now, this very moment…you are the child!—_and saw her little face go white as the unending snow outside, he had never imagined hating anyone quite so much as he hated the Witch right then.

17 • **Wellbeing**

When Edmund approached Tumnus just before the coronation and asked his forgiveness for betraying him to the Witch, the Faun was momentarily caught up with the chill and terror of Her castle and the awful grey muckiness of turning to stone—but then he remembered Lucy's worry-fraught expression when she'd bent over her brother with the cordial, and said "yes."

18 • **Place**

"All the princes in those parts desired her to be their Queen"—but few who saw the golden-haired Queen with her Advisor ever asked.

19 • **Rain**

Once Edmund caught the two of them standing together underneath Tumnus' umbrella, watching a storm roll in over the Sea—he didn't stop teasing his sister about it for months.

20 • **Composition**

He teased the Dryads relentlessly with little flirtatious tunes on his flute, but the themes he wrote for Queen Lucy's birthday needed no words.

21 • **Return**

The Faun Tumnus lived to be very old and well-loved and respectable, but his grandnephews and grandnieces became deeply concerned when their ancient uncle started wandering the woods looking for someplace called "War Drobe."

22 • **Forlorn**

The Ocelot who used to supply the Faun with a hearty stock of bread for toasting suffered an especially hard blow when Their Majesties disappeared and her best source of income swore off teatime for more than a year.

23 • **Change**

Mr. and Mrs. Pevensie could never explain their youngest daughter's sudden distaste for sardines (any more than they could explain the way their youngest son's face abruptly turned green at the sight of his favorite sweets), and attributed the unexpected fickleness to the woes of adolescence.

24 • **Image**

Master Childe stared after twelve-year-old Lucy in bewilderment; she was usually one of his top students and he couldn't understand why she raced out of his lesson on Roman mythological beasts almost in tears.

25 • **Ritual**

Lucy and Tumnus never outgrew their strange little handshake, but as the years passed even Lucy admitted she'd forgotten what it was supposed to mean in the first place, and it became just "that odd bit the Valiant Queen and her Royal Advisor like to do after a long absence."

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**A/N: A quick note (on #18 in particular), since I said this wasn't a ship fic: just keep in mind that in some of these I try to capture others' perspectives of them, and not merely their feelings about each other. It leaves more room for the reader's personal interpretation (which is sort of the point of fanfic, right?). Anyways, I hope you enjoyed these, and thanks much for reading!**


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